McCartney: Young fans still dig me

Sir Paul McCartney is surprised “beautiful young women” still attend his concerts.

The 71-year-old singer/songwriter is promoting his forthcoming album, New, and this week surprised New Yorkers with an impromptu show in Times Square.

More than 50 years after forming The Beatles, Paul admits seeing fans half his age in the crowd is always unexpected.

“We will go down to South America and play to extremely young audiences, many of whom are very beautiful young women,” he told UK newspaper The Sun.

“It’s like uncanny, the band and me look at each other and we think, ‘Are we meant to be doing this?’”

The legendary musician is thankful to still be on top so many years later. He said the start of his career could have easily gone in the other direction.

“Being in The Beatles was phenomenally special but we could have been dead and gone long ago and people wouldn’t remember this strange little group from Liverpool,” Paul explained, adding of his diverse fan base, “What happens is you find an awful lot of people doing the Wings sign in the audience, so there’s that generation too. It’s pretty amazing to still be there making new music alongside that legendary reputation.”

The singer said he had a great time working on his latest record and said it felt like getting “back to my day job”.

He hired four new producers to work with him on the project and is thrilled with the eclectic mix of tracks.

“Looking at making an album of new songs in a fresh light was very exciting,” Paul said, adding, “I’m very lucky to do a job I love and if I can love it and it can be exciting, then that’s a formula you can’t beat.”